


Haunted

by paintedteeth



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Post-War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:02:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29817090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedteeth/pseuds/paintedteeth
Summary: A post-War fic in which Hermione is kidnapped by the Death Eaters, Obliviated, and brainwashed into believing that she was, and is, a loyal foot soldier to Voldemort. Draco is assigned to train her and the other Order members who were kidnapped along with her. Over time, her memories begin to return, and chaos ensues.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	1. 1

“Wow, you managed to score Potter’s Mudblood?”

“She put up a fight. But we got her.”

Hermione’s eyes fluttered open to the sound of voices echoing around her, barely audible. Her fight or flight instinct kicked in, but as her head swiveled in both directions, finding only rough stone walls and steel bars, it became clear that there was nobody to fight and nowhere to flee. Wherever she was, she was trapped. There was a ringing in her ears and a dull ache swimming through her head, but she was unable to conjure a reason why. She dove back through her memory, trying to uncover what had happened, but nothing surfaced. It was all just… blank. 

A woman she didn’t recognize stepped into view, just beyond the bars of her cell. “What’s your name?” the woman asked, looking down at Hermione with faint delight. That look told her all that she needed to know; she’d been captured by Death Eaters.

She blinked. “Penelope Clearwater,” she lied immediately, the familiar pseudonym rolling easily off her tongue. Dimly, she wondered what Penelope was doing these days. Had she survived the Battle of Hogwarts? What had come of her?

The woman’s face drew tightly together, and then released as she rolled her eyes, a thin smile settling on her lips. “Nice try,” she said, and Hermione’s heart leapt. There were two options. Either they knew Penelope Clearwater and thus knew that Hermione was not her, or they knew who Hermione was already.

She found the latter to be more likely, if only because she was mostly known to the Death Eaters as Harry Potter’s friend. _Harry…_ His unmoving green eyes flashed before her mind, but she pushed the thought away. In the time since he’d died, she’d found grief to be a convenient excuse to slip into her own head and drown out the rest of the world. But she couldn’t do that now. She had to focus.

Her eyes sharpened on the woman, scanning for anything that she could use. But there was nothing. The woman was seemingly a blank slate. She donned a black cloak that shrouded her figure and she stared at Hermione with deep brown eyes, her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail that sat atop her head. There wasn’t an ounce of familiarity to her tanned face.

The woman pulled her gaze away from Hermione and looked back over her shoulder. “Malfoy,” she called, “this one needs another go.”

_Malfoy?_

Sure enough, a white-blond head appeared out of the darkness, and a chill ran down her spine as his silver eyes locked on her face. Her reaction was instinctive. She scrambled to her feet and swung her body against the bars of the cell, a clang reverberating through the cavern. “You!” she shrieked in a blind rage. “You fucker!”

He didn’t so much as flinch. Just appraised her outburst the way an adult would watch a child throwing a tantrum in a grocery store. He stood perfectly still, his arms clasped behind his back. Raising an eyebrow, he stepped forward another inch, perhaps expecting her to shrink back. But she stood her ground. “Yes?”

That same mocking tone from school grated on her nerves. Jaw jutted forward and nostrils flared, she summoned her most menacing glare and fixed it on him. “I could kill you,” she hissed. She could hear her heartbeat thumping in her throat. In the near silence of the cavern, could he hear it? “You vile coward. Cruel, pathetic monster. Spineless, weak—”

His face changed suddenly, the amusement replaced by a blank stare. He was Occluding, shielding his true emotions. Typical. “That’s enough.”

Not for her, it wasn’t. “You are a hateful, disgusting creature,” she continued, tightening her grip on the bars of the cell as she glowered. “You had every fucking chance in the world to do the right thing, and you _never_ took it.”

His face betrayed no emotions. “You don’t think I did the right thing?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer as he took another step forward and narrowed his eyes. She was trapped in his focus; a bug in a spider’s web. “Which one of us is in a cell right now, and which one of us is free?” His gaze was cool, and before she could blink, he’d withdrawn his wand and was holding it to her throat through a gap in the bars. The tip nestled directly under her chin.

She swallowed without meaning to, and it pressed harder into the skin. “I’d rather be in a cell than be anything like you,” she spat, her voice low with disgust.

He towered over her, his frame casting a shadow on her face, but even so, she scowled back at him. This was a dare, a challenge, and one that she wouldn’t back down from. In school he’d been able to intimidate her, at least before she had the sense to realize what a waste of energy he was. She’d be damned if she let him intimidate her now.

He just stared, watching her like a cat. His eyes were expectedly clouded, but she hoped that her comment had made it through his defenses. She wanted him to hurt.

A sigh from behind him shook her focus. “Enough of all this foreplay, can we get on with it?” Hermione had forgotten about the woman from before in her rage at Malfoy. The wand on her throat disappeared and he cleared his throat as though he were preparing himself. “And do it right this time, I don’t want to hear the name _Penelope Clearwater_ ever again in my life.”

His silver eyes flashed, and he whirled around to face the woman. “You can’t just erase someone’s entire mind in one go, Credence. It takes time. If you had any skill with a wand, maybe you’d know that.” His voice was nearing a snarl. “And for the love of Merlin, stick to the plan when she wakes up. I don’t want to have to come back and fix your fuck-ups.”

 _Erase someone’s mind?_ Is that what he was doing to her?

She recoiled against the back wall of the cell, her thoughts frantically searching for a way out. She was wandless and trapped with two Death Eaters blocking beyond the cell. Even if she could get out of the cell, she’d have to deal with the two of them, and then however many more Death Eaters were lurking where she couldn’t see. The odds were too great. Panic exploded into her brain. Had she finally encountered a problem that she couldn’t think her way out of?

With all of her might, she screamed _Accio wand_ in her mind, narrowly hoping that Malfoy’s wand would come to her, but it didn’t even flinch in his grip. _Fuck._ He turned back to her, and if he was surprised to see that she had moved, he didn’t show it.

He held up the wand, his arm straight, and his silver eyes bore straight into her soul. It was almost… captivating. And then before she had a chance to do anything to save herself, the word was out of his lips. “ _Obliviate_.”

***

“Wake up.”

Groggily, she opened her eyes, blinking anxiously to clear the disorientation from her vision. In front of her was a crouched blonde woman peering at her with a concerned gaze.

“Do you know your name?” the woman asked gently.

What an odd question. Of course, she knew her name. It was… She took in a breath, trying to remember. Alarm seized her body. _What is my name?_ But when she plunged into her brain looking for answers, there was nothing. Where there should’ve been memories, there was just haziness. Like an empty bookshelf. There used to be books there… Where had they gone? Where had her name gone?

The woman stood and produced a wand from the black cloak that hung across her frame, tapping it to the barred door of the cave-like cell that Nameless sat in. As the door hinge creaked, the question rang back through her mind on a vicious loop.

_What’s my name? What’s my name? What’s my name?_

The woman’s thin lips curved into a slight smile and she gestured for Nameless to come. “It’s alright. We feared this would be the case. Everything will be explained.” Hesitantly, she stood, dusting her hands along her clothing.

She followed the woman down the cavern’s corridor, passing other identical cells to her own. _Where the hell am I?_ She couldn’t help but peer into each cell as they walked and was relieved to find them all empty.

Her head was light like a balloon, and she blinked quickly, trying to focus on the task at hand. This wasn’t the moment to faint or throw up or fall. She fixed her gaze on the woman’s back and watched her long blonde ponytail swaying against her spine with each step she took. Maybe it would have the same calming effect as a pendulum.

Evidently, it did not.

She mentally argued with herself, trying not to get too worked up over the loss of her memories and identity. _She said that everything will be explained_ , she reasoned with herself. _Just calm down._ And though that rational thought had merit, she was unable to curb the panic rising in her throat. How could she even know she could trust this woman? She seemed kind enough, but Nameless knew instinctively that appearances weren’t everything. Was there something more sinister hiding in the depths of Ponytail, of this place, wherever and whatever it was?

Her logic fought back against her urge to start running. It would likely be better to gather more information and work off of that rather than try to blindly escape, when she didn’t even know who or what she was escaping. And besides, what other choices did she really have? She didn’t even know the most basic things about herself; how could she possibly manage an escape?

“You can go in,” Ponytail said, waving her hand at a doorway that led into a small officelike room. _Shit, I should have been paying attention when we were walking_ , she thought. She gulped as inconspicuously as possible and entered, taking in the minimal furniture— a table with two chairs opposite each other. It reminded her of an interrogation room. “Sit. I’ll grab someone to come talk to you.”

_What the hell…_

But she sat obediently as Ponytail left and shut the door behind her. She was alone. She folded her hands in her lap and crossed her ankles, taking another look around the room. Maybe she’d see some detail that would help explain what was going on. But there was nothing. It was just an empty, boring room. Useless.

She shivered and realized she was wearing a tee shirt. It was one she didn’t recognize, but she was starting to get used to that feeling, however uncomfortable it was. The room had better lighting than the cell and it allowed her to actually see herself. She wished she had a mirror. She wasn’t even sure what she looked like. Hesitantly, her fingers reached up to her hair. It was messy and tangled, but it was undeniably curly.

A small victory, but a victory, nonetheless. Now there was at least one thing that she knew about herself. _I have curly hair_. She stretched one of the strands out so she could ascertain its color. _I have brown curly hair_ , she thought, amending the statement. It felt ridiculous to have to find things out about herself that should have been engrained in her blood. It was like having to be told that the sky is blue.

(The sky was blue, wasn’t it?)

_Okay, okay, what else?_ She examined her hands, turning them over in front of her. No nail polish, no callouses, no scars. Nothing but some freckles. She turned her attention to her arms. And then she saw it.

A tattoo the size of a baseball that looked like the corner of a rectangle and then a line was printed on what would have been her bicep if she had any muscle at all. She craned her neck and grasped her elbow to get a closer look. It wasn’t a rectangle corner and a line. It was the number seventeen.

Just then, the door opened, and she dropped her hold on her elbow in surprise. A woman strode into the room, eyeing Nameless cautiously as if she were a bomb ready to explode. In her left hand was a manila file, its contents peeking out the sides. There was a casualness to her demeanor but a hard edge in her jade eyes that forced Nameless to straighten her posture against the chair.

“So,” the woman said, taking a seat in the empty chair across from Nameless. “We have a lot to discuss.”

She shifted uncomfortably, uncrossing and recrossing her ankles. She felt like she was about to be reprimanded. For what, she didn’t know. But the anxiety gnawed at her, the worry almost familiar. Did she used to be afraid of getting in trouble?

She knew nothing about herself. But she tried not to let it show as the woman’s eyes trailed across her face, and down to the number tattooed on her arm. “Your name is Seventeen,” the woman said.

She mulled this over in her head. _Seventeen_. _That’s a number, not a name._ “I… I don’t understand,” she admitted, the urge to cry pricking at the back of her throat. She bit down on her lips, willing the tears to stay back.

The woman considered her. “You used to have a name. But when you declared yourself a loyal soldier to the Dark Lord, you were given a new name. Seventeen.” She was watching Seventeen carefully, boring into the fine details of her face, and waiting for a tell. Seventeen didn’t know what the woman was looking for, but she could only hope she was passing the test.

Her brows furrowed in confusion. “The Dark Lord?”

The woman pursed her lips. “How about we start with what you _do_ know,” she said. “I am going to ask you some questions, and I want you to answer honestly.”

“Why would I lie?”

The woman seemed to pretend not to hear her.

“What is your name?” she asked. Seventeen wanted to overturn the table. What was the point of this ridiculous question? She’d already made it clear that she didn’t know the real answer.

“Seventeen, I guess,” she murmured begrudgingly.

“How old are you?”

She blinked. She could take a guess and say seventeen, but that’s all it would be. A guess. It felt like a sob was working its way up her throat, so she shrugged in response, too fearful of speaking.

And the questions kept coming. She couldn’t answer a single one. _Who are your parents? Where are you from? What do you know of the War?_

That one sparked interest. The War? _Is that why I have no memory? Because I was in a war?_

At last, the woman asked a question that she could answer. “What do you know of the Wizarding world?”

A rush of familiarity flourished in the arid desert of her brain. _The Wizarding world_. “I’m a witch,” she said suddenly, before she could wonder if that was information that she should be sharing. The woman nodded, as if to say, go on. Seventeen moistened her lips, mentally weighing the choice to tell the truth or to lie.

She didn’t know enough about herself to discern whether this woman was a friend or a foe. And the opportunity to get more information seemed too good to pass up. _Truth, it is_.

“I… went to a school. Hogwarts. It was for magic. And I… used a wand.” A vision of a library flashed behind her eyes. “I think I liked it there. I liked the library.” She wasn’t even sure if that was true, but it felt right coming out of her mouth. The words fit together like long-lost puzzle pieces. Only there were no other puzzle pieces to compare them to; she still couldn’t see the full picture. Just a glimmer.

“What house were you in?”

 _House…_ She closed her eyes, breathing in through her nose, struggling to think. _Yes, there were houses. There were four houses._ _Red, blue, green, yellow_. Their names escaped her. “I’m not sure.”

Appearing content with Seventeen’s answers, the woman leaned back in her chair, her eyes softening. “They really did a number on you, didn’t they?” she said quietly.

Seventeen’s eyes filled with tears and she hung her head, trying to keep her face out of view while she blinked furiously. Her cheeks felt like they were on fire. When she was confident that she could speak without crying, she lifted her head. “They?”

“The Order.”

Seventeen waited for further explanation. Surely the woman must know that if she knew the answer to scarcely a single question that had been asked, she wouldn’t know of the Order, whatever it was. Was the woman going to make her ask? Seventeen was just about to open her mouth to take the bait when the woman pulled the manila folder from her lap and set it in front of herself on the table.

“The Order of the Phoenix. They were our enemies in the War.” Her green eyes seemed to glitter for a moment. “The War that we won.”

The woman dove into what felt like a history lesson, and Seventeen listened intently, hanging onto every word. She learned that, like the woman had mentioned before, she was a soldier for the Dark Lord and had been on a mission in Switzerland when she’d been kidnapped by the Order along with the other members of her unit.

The Order had erased their memories in an attempt to get them to switch their loyalties, but luckily, the Death Eaters (that’s what her side, the Dark Lord’s followers, were called) managed to save them.

She told Seventeen about the injuries she’d sustained while in captivity as a prisoner of the Order, how the Death Eaters had nearly thought she wouldn’t make it. She’d been tortured and beaten over the several weeks that she was a hostage. Then the woman opened the folder she’d placed on the table and slid several photos towards Seventeen.

Nausea crept into her gut, but she swallowed it down, forcing herself to look at the moving photos. She was their subject; bloodied, bruised, and clearly badly beaten. Her eyes traced along this version of herself, struggling to remember when the photos had been taken. She appeared to be asleep, or dead even, but wouldn’t she remember the injuries? How they felt?

She shivered, absently caressing the smooth skin of her arms. Without photographic evidence, she wouldn’t be able to tell that she’d endured such horrors. The combination of her memory loss and the healing magic that had been used on her had erased all traces of what she’d been through.

 _Maybe it’s a blessing that I don’t remember anything_ , she thought. _I don’t have to know what happened to me_.

But even as she thought it, she knew in her gut that it wasn’t true. She’d rather know that something bad had happened than not know at all. The uncertainty was a bottomless pit that she was suspended in, forever falling. At least the knowing would give her something to grapple with, something to work through. Something to heal from. Instead, she was in limbo.

Still, something nagged at her. “What was the War for?”

The woman’s demeanor hardened, almost imperceptibly. If Seventeen hadn’t been keenly aware of every twitch on the woman’s face, she wouldn’t have caught it. “The Order wanted to destroy the Wizarding world. We kept that from happening.” She leaned forward in her chair. “The important thing is that we won,” she said, quieter.

And now knowing what the Order was capable of, Seventeen was grateful they had.


	2. 2

“You and the other members of your unit who were taken will need to be retrained over the next couple of months,” the woman told Seventeen, standing from her seat. “Come, I’ll show you the compound and where you’ll be living.”

Seventeen nodded, her head still swimming with all that she’d learned. She’d been told that everything would be explained to her, but she still had so many questions. The woman had asked how old she was but hadn’t offered an answer when Seventeen had been unable to say. And that was just one of so many examples.

Maybe in time, things would become clearer. She could only hope. The misery was already starting to chew away at her.

She followed the woman out of the interrogation room and down a marble floored hallway, crystal chandeliers dangling from the high ceiling. Ornately framed portraits lined the walls, and she caught their distasteful stares, shying away from their gazes after one spat at her. The woman, walking just ahead, didn’t seem to notice.

The hallway opened into a large entryway where a wide set of stairs waited, their steps covered in plush emerald-green carpeting. Seventeen tried to hide her shock. _This_ was a military compound? It looked more like an expensive hotel.

The woman gestured to the right and Seventeen shifted her attention to a pair of open doors. “This is the dining room,” she said, and Seventeen peered through the doorway to see four long tables stretching across the expansive room. They were already complete with dishes, silverware, and green cloth napkins, and the seats were upholstered in that same green fabric. Death Eaters must like the color green.

The woman turned and wordlessly began ascending the grand staircase, not checking to see if Seventeen was following. After a final look at the dining room, she jogged to catch up with the woman. More portraits lined the walls of the staircase and she tried not to notice their cruel faces, shriveled up in disgust as she passed. Maybe they were like that to everyone.

They walked up two flights of the staircase, and Seventeen struggled to keep up with the woman’s long-legged strides. By the time they reached what she assumed was the third floor of the building, Seventeen was panting and trying to hide her gulps of air. The woman didn’t pause at the landing; just turned right and continued her path.

She finally came to a halt in front of a door, and pushed it open. Inside was a modest bedroom. A bed, a small table beside it, and an armoire. It was bland, devoid of any decorations, the bed fitted with a simple white spread and no throw pillows. Compared to the uncontrolled opulence of the rest of the compound, she was nearly surprised to see such a wan room. But perhaps the decadence was meant only for the grand halls and not for small bedrooms befit for soldiers.

“This is your room,” the woman offered, opening the door further. Seventeen took a careful step inside. “You’ll find training clothes in the dresser. Everything should fit.” Seventeen’s jaw tightened at the thought. Were these her clothes from before her captivity? Would they bring back even a hint of her memories? Curiously, she walked to the armoire and tugged open the door. The disappointment hit her before she even knew why. Because in her gut, she knew that these had not been her clothes. There was no reason to assume it, but she just knew.

She ran a hand along the black fabrics, finding them almost silky beneath her fingertips. They were some wicking material, and Seventeen could guess that they had a fair amount of protection spells cast upon them from how she could feel the magic thrum into her skin. The thought popped her into her head suddenly. “I have a wand, don’t I?”

She turned to find the woman watching her from the doorway. Her expression was guarded, and Seventeen abruptly wondered if perhaps she had known this woman before. They couldn’t have been friends, not with how even her behavior had been. Could they have been enemies? Was that coldness lying beneath her careful eyes a well-practiced hatred?

“You will be given a wand at your training sessions. Until you are properly trained you will not be allowed to use it outside of that time.” She couldn’t hide her sigh. She longed to hold a wand, to feel magic coursing through her body. Maybe _then_ , she would remember something. Anything.

The woman cleared her throat, drawing Seventeen’s attention back to her tight face. “I’ll leave you. Dinner is in 30 minutes. Someone will knock on your door to collect you.” The woman’s hand gripped the knob of the door, ready to close it, and a wave of panic surged in Seventeen’s throat. For some reason that she could not name, she did not want to be left alone.

“Wait!” she called, before the door could close. The woman paused, eyeing her. “What’s your name?”

Those green eyes stared her down. “Maxine Barlow, but you may call me Barlow,” she replied after a moment. Then she closed the door with a soft click, leaving Seventeen standing in the middle of the room in front of an open set of shelves.

And there was one thought that made her head ache. _Maxine_ _Barlow is a name, not a number._

***

Unsure of what to do with herself in the time before dinner, Seventeen found herself looking further through the clothes. Her current clothes were ripped, and had they not already been black, she was sure they would’ve been stained with dirt or blood. Self-consciously, she checked that the door was locked, and then slipped off the tee shirt, abandoning it in a crumple on the floor. In its place, she tugged a thin long-sleeved top over her head, almost shivering from how nice it felt against her skin.

As she changed out her bottoms, she felt a nagging discomfort over the idea that she was putting clean clothes on a dirty body. But she hadn’t been shown the bathroom, and she’d felt that there had been an unspoken instruction not to leave the room until dinner.

She thought, then, of dinner, and her stomach audibly grumbled in the silence of her bedroom. She had nobody to be embarrassed in front of, but still she hugged her arms around her abdomen to get the noise to quiet. It did nothing of the sort.

***

The next twenty-seven minutes were passed with Seventeen laying on the clean white sheets, staring up at the ceiling. She arranged her curls out around her head in a halo and pondered extensively about herself.

Asked herself questions that she could not answer. Reached her fingertips up to her face and felt the contours of her jaw, her nose, her lips, struggling to form a mental picture of herself. (Of course, the room did not come equipped with a mirror). Tugged down her new leggings and explored every inch of skin of her legs and feet, looking for anything that could tell her who she was before. And just like before, when she’d examined her hands and her arms, she found nothing helpful. There was a small scar on her left knee, but as she traced it with her index finger, she could not supply a memory for how she’d gotten it.

With no clock in the room and no way to sense how long it had been, her leggings were still at her ankles when a knock came from her door. She scrambled off of the bed, pulling the pants up hurriedly, and when she flung the door open, her cheeks were hot as if she’d been caught doing something nefarious.

Her eyes met a girl whose red hair was only a shade brighter than Seventeen’s face was sure to be. She must have looked insane, because the girl’s brown eyes widened. “Hello,” she said. “Dinner.”

Seventeen nodded, and stepped out into the hallway, closing her door behind her. She hoped that later on she’d be able to tell which room was hers, but that was not a problem to deal with now. The girl gave her a tentative smile. “You’re Seventeen?” the girl asked as they began walking towards the staircase she’d come up with Barlow.

Seventeen was unable to hide her confusion. “How did you know? Did we… know each other?” The uncertainty was dizzying. To be faced with a person and be unsure if you had a history with them. If you’d done things to them, if they’d done things to you… If you’d laughed together, cried together, screamed at one another.

The girl’s smile widened. “I’m sure that we did, but I don’t remember.” Then she pointed to Seventeen’s neck. “Our tattoos are on our arms and our necks.” Seventeen’s hand reached up to the skin, expecting it to feel different if there was truly a tattoo there. But every inch of it was just as smooth as the rest. Still, she trusted the other girl was telling the truth.

Her eyes flitted back to the girl, who brushed her ginger hair from her freckled shoulder to reveal her own tattoo. The number twenty-three was tattooed there, in the same way that she now knew that the number seventeen marred her own skin. “I haven’t been able to see a mirror,” Seventeen replied clumsily, hoping it would explain her lack of knowledge at her own appearance.

“I’ll show you the bathroom after dinner,” Twenty-Three replied, and they made their way down the grand staircase. Voices echoed off the marble and grew louder as they descended. When they reached the bottom landing, she found the source of the noise. A small group of adults, all in black clothing, were huddled together at the entrance to the dining room.

As she and Twenty-Three grew closer, their conversation died, and the adults eyed them with unreadable stares. Again, Seventeen couldn’t help but wonder if she’d known them before. Badly she wanted to ask them questions about herself. But Twenty-Three kept walking past them, so Seventeen just lowered her head and followed her all the way to the end of the farthest table in the dining room, settling into the seat next to the other girl.

“I came to earlier today,” Twenty-Three said, answering a question that Seventeen’s nerves had kept her from asking. “I assume you only just woke.”

Seventeen nodded, and tried to ignore the grumbling in her stomach. “Do you also… not remember anything?”

Twenty-Three met her gaze and behind her eyes, there was the promise of allyship, of shared experience. “There are some things, basic things, that I remember. But not my name, my age, or anything else remotely useful.”

“Me too,” Seventeen replied quickly, relief coloring the words. “It’s driving me mental,” she confided, and from the way that Twenty-Three’s back relaxed into the chair beside her, she got the sense that the other girl felt the same way.

“They barely told me anything earlier,” Twenty-Three said, her voice dropping into a hushed whisper. “They basically just said my memory had been wiped, I’d been kidnapped by the Order, that I was a soldier, then dropped me in my room.”

Seventeen nodded quickly. “Same. I’m so confused. And I’m itching to get my hands on a wand. Or somebody who knew me before.”

There was a pause while Twenty-Three thought about her words. “We must have known each other, if we were both kidnapped together, right? We would have been in the same unit?”

Seventeen’s stomach sank at the idea of this. She was conversing with this girl who she’d likely known, and more than likely been friends with. And now they were strangers. “I think so,” she murmured.

As they talked, more people entered the dining room, filling seats at all the tables, until they could no longer talk without being overheard by anyone else. Seventeen knew that there was nothing wrong with what they were talking about, but the conversation died all the same, as if they were exchanging secrets.

A group of four filed into the dining room, all wearing the same training clothing that she and Twenty-Three sported, various numbers tattooed on their necks. They must have spotted her and Twenty-Three, because suddenly the four were headed in the direction of their table, and sliding into the seats around them.

“Hello,” Seventeen ventured, unsure of whether these new companions had also been kidnapped, or if they were expecting her to know who they were.

One of the boys smiled at her, his hand reaching up to swipe his brown curly hair out of his forehead. “I guess we don’t have to bother with names,” he said in reply. Without meaning for it to, Seventeen’s hand went for her neck. He pretended not to see.

The six of them were quiet, and Seventeen took the opportunity to glance at each of their necks. The boy she’d said hello to was Nineteen, and the girl next to him, whose blonde waves cascaded across her shoulders, almost obscuring her number, was Twelve. Next to Twelve was Eight, a boy with shaggy blond hair, who offered her a large-toothed smile shyly. And then across from her was Six, who Seventeen studied to wonder if the girl’s dark bushy hair resembled her own. 

Seventeen longed to make conversation, if not just to have something to do, but those that sat around her seemed stunned into silence by their situation. From the way they stared at their own hands and plates, Seventeen was sure they’d all had their memories wiped as well. So she settled on letting her eyes wander the room.

At another table she found another silent group of people with numbers on their necks, but aside from her group and theirs, none of the other occupants of the room were tattooed in that way. Instead, she could see a different kind of tattoo on some of their forearms. It peeked out from under the robes of a few in the room, but none had the tattoo fully exposed for her to see what it was.

Her eyes passed the faces seated at the tables, hoping for an ounce of familiarity with any of them, but there was nothing. Until her gaze landed on him.

It wasn’t because he was familiar, no. It was because he was looking at her too. Her eyes slid past him and then retraced back to his face once her brain caught up with her senses. He didn’t break his stare, which sent a jolt through her body.

His eyes were an intense silvery blue, and his hair was a shade of blond so light that it could pass for white. A scowl hardened his pale face after a moment and she blinked in surprise, her forehead tugging together in confusion. An unease rolled through her body like a bad case of cramps. Just then, Twenty-Three said something, and she was forcibly pulled from her reverie. “What?” she stammered, meeting the gaze of the redhead.

“Blimey, you were out of it!” she said with a smile. “Barlow just came over here and said we were going to have our first training after dinner. Maybe you’ll get your hands on a wand.”

Seventeen swallowed and tried to feel as excited at the prospect as she would have been a mere two minutes ago. But her eyes swept back to where she’d seen the man, and instead found air. He was gone.

Within a few minutes, plates and plates of food appeared in front of them, and with the dinner as a social lubricant, their group began to chat in between mouthfuls of creamy mashed potatoes and bites of some roasted meat. Seventeen found herself ravenous and could hardly contribute to the conversation, though she did attempt to listen carefully and get a feel for the others’ personalities.

Nineteen, the one who’d quipped back to her greeting when he’d sat at the table, was the loudest of the bunch, an obvious extrovert. Twenty-Three made easy jokes back to him, and Seventeen began to wonder if her new companion would prefer Nineteen’s humor to her own silence.

They discussed the grandiosity of the compound, and Seventeen was able to throw in a remark about the prevalence of the color green, which the others agreed with. The blonde girl, Twelve, spoke in a dreamy tone, comparing the shade to Barlow’s eyes, who it seemed they’d all had to debrief with. Seventeen thought back to her time with the woman in that small interrogation room, focusing on how her eyes had bored into Seventeen’s while she fired questions at her, and realized that Twelve was quite right.

They had no pasts to discuss and no shared memories, but the group of six somehow managed to talk all throughout the meal. “I wonder what training is going to be like,” Eight, the blond boy, murmured, before practically inhaling a bite of food.

“They’ll probably have to test all of us to see where our magical abilities are at,” replied Six, the girl with the bushy hair. Seventeen wouldn’t admit to thinking it, but she hoped that her curls looked better than Six’s. The way the girl’s hair fanned out from her head like an animal’s nest made her pat her own locks down, dragging her fingers across the curls in an attempt to brush out anything that might have been stuck in them. To her horror, she pulled out a leaf, which she hid in her palm and then let fall to the floor once her hand was out of view.

Twenty-Three’s rust-colored brows furrowed as she held her fork in the air between bites. “Won’t they already know where we’re at? From before… we were taken?” she asked.

“Maybe some of our magical abilities disappeared with our memories,” Seventeen muttered before she could stop herself, the sobering thought popping into her head like a raincloud. Nobody in the group seemed to have an adequate response.

That was, until Nineteen caught her eyes with a grin plastered on his lips. “Well, I’m fairly certain I’m better than all of you,” he joked. And the lighthearted banter returned.

***

“The newbies are here,” came a sing-song voice from behind Draco, but he didn’t have to turn to see who it was. Blaise stepped into view and wiggled his eyebrows the way he used to whenever Pansy Parkinson or Daphne Greengrass were nearby in the Slytherin common room. “Are you excited to see Granger?”

Only Draco didn’t smile the way he used to, back when he had childish giddiness and innocence on his side. “Use the numbers, Zabini. If they hear their names, I’ll have to Obliviate them again,” he muttered quietly, letting his scowl harden his face.

But Blaise’s grin only widened. “Fine. Are you excited to see _Seventeen_?”

“Why the hell do you think I care so much about her? I should be asking you if you’re excited to see Twelve,” he replied, using the number name for Luna Lovegood. Draco rolled his eyes at Blaise’s immediate change in expression and continued into the dining room, his friend right at his heels. He doubted Blaise actually had a thing for Lovegood, but if he could tease Draco about Granger, then it was fair game. They settled at their usual table, and Draco tried to keep his gaze down, tried not to look for her in the dining room.

Blaise slapped him on the back. “Don’t get so worked up, she won’t even remember you.” He didn’t react. Blaise thought that was a good thing. It wasn’t.

But then something tugged his eyes up against his will, and there she was across the dining hall, her gaze scanning the faces of its occupants. At first, her eyes slid right over him, but then they came back. He wasn’t prepared, and it took him a moment to recover, to force his well-practiced scowl onto his features.

A chill ran down his spine as he detected not even a trace of hatred in her hazel eyes. It had been so many years since she’d looked at him this way, with none of the disgust or malice or contempt that she normally held for him. The last time she’d looked at him like this, it was on the Hogwarts Express in their first year, when she’d asked his compartment if they’d seen a wandering toad. He’d made a stupid remark to her, and that was when the annoyance and negativity began to seep into how she looked at him. Over the years, the annoyance had turned into something much darker, much uglier. And it was his own fault.

But now, she blinked at him with confusion, like she didn’t understand why he would scowl at her. Blaise was right; it should’ve been a good thing. Instead, it felt like a punch to the gut. She wasn’t herself anymore. She didn’t _know_ to hate him.

Ginny Weasley, who sat next to her, said something, and Granger’s eyes left his face. And without her eyes to track his movement, he stood abruptly. Before Blaise could ask, he murmured, "I’m not hungry,” and then retreated hurriedly from the table. At the exit to the room, he couldn’t help himself, and his focus found her once more.

She sat at a far table, the number seventeen tattooed on her neck, with a smattering of people he’d known at Hogwarts, all of which who’d had their memories wiped. Romilda Vane, with her signature bushy hair that resembled how Granger’s had looked before fifth year, and Neville Longbottom whose crooked teeth were flashing in a grin at the others. There was Luna Lovegood, who hadn’t lost her dreamy way of speaking, and Justin Finch-Fletchley who seemed to be able to pick up conversation easily even without memories or confidence to aid him.

Draco shook his head and willed his feet to take him out of the dining room, out of her view in case she looked again. But why would she? She didn’t know who he was. None of them knew who he was. He needed to stop thinking about their real names, lest he slip up and accidentally address them improperly.

As he made his way up the grand staircase and to the third floor where his childhood bedroom could offer a refuge, he felt regret like acid in his stomach. He never should have offered to train the kidnapped recruits. It was an idiotic thing to do.

He’d assumed he’d be able to keep his emotions in check for the purpose of keeping an eye on Granger, but already he could feel himself coming undone at the seams. He threw open the door to his bedroom, still decorated in signature Slytherin green and silver, and beelined to his bookshelf, to his copy of _Advanced Potion Making_. After ensuring that the door to the room was locked, he pulled the book from the shelf, and opened it to the first page at his desk.

With his wand, he drew a small cut on his finger and pressed the bead of blood at the skin to the book, feeling a familiar hum of magic come alive in the pages. He’d done some careful and heavily researched blood magic to charm the book so that communication could only open in the pages if a series of steps were performed. First was presenting his blood, and next was casting a bout of seemingly innocuous spells that nobody could possibly guess would be used to validate the user’s identity. After that, any message written to him would appear, and any message he wrote would be transmitted to the sister book to his own.

Like always, he waited a few moments for anything to appear on the page. But like the last several months, there was nothing. The blasted Order hadn’t communicated with him in months, though he’d written to them almost every day. Maybe the only people who knew about his work with them had died at the Battle of Hogwarts. Maybe their similarly charmed communication book had been lost, or burned, or destroyed.

This didn’t stop him from locating a quill and an inkpot and writing a message anyways. It was practically the same message he’d been writing every day since he’d learned that Hermione Granger had been part of the group captured.

_If you see this message, launch an attack at the Manor. Save them._

He neglected to mention that the only person of the group that he really cared about saving was her, but he had a feeling that it didn’t need to be said. When he’d first come to Remus Lupin to offer himself as a double agent, the werewolf wizard had asked permission to use Legilimency on him to distinguish his true intentions. _Who knew that Lupin was a Legilimens?_

But Draco had obliged, and for once in his life, let his mind be completely searched without hiding anything using Occlumency. He’d closed his eyes while Lupin had dove into his thoughts and memories, and when Lupin had finally spoken after the minutes that they sat there, there was an odd look on his face. And Draco knew that he knew. That wasn’t to say that Granger was the only reason he had joined the Order. But she was _one_ of the reasons.

Not that it really mattered now. Because here she was, eating dinner in the Malfoy Manner, wearing Death Eater training clothes, thinking that the Order was the enemy and that she was fighting for the right side.

And he was going to have to pretend that all of that was true if he had any chance of saving her from all this. If he had any chance of helping them survive at all. He shut the book and deposited it back into its place on his bookshelf, then sat on the edge of his bed, feeling himself sink into the soft mattress.

It took a few moments for him to regulate his breathing. _In, out, in, out_ , just like Snape had instructed him back when he’d first learned Occlumency. Then he let his eyes fall shut, and a version of his bedroom appeared in his mind.

It looked just as it did now, even down to the rumpled sheets on the bed from how he’d slept last night. The door to his mental bedroom opened, and his heart stopped. Granger stood in the doorway, her seventeen tattoo so dark on her tanned skin. His breath caught in his throat as she closed the door behind her and leaned against it, those hazel eyes watching him wordlessly.

Her dark curls fell across her collarbones, and he held his breath, feeling the blood rushing in his ears as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and took a step towards him. Towards the bed.

He tightened his grip on the mattress where he sat, and willed himself to remember what Snape had taught him all those years ago. She needed to be returned to her box, out of sight and out of mind. But he couldn’t manage to lift his wand and cast the spell that would banish her. So instead, he watched as she moved closer and closer, until she was standing right in front of him, her face above him, and he had to look up to her. He wasn’t sure if in real life her clothes fit like this, but in his mental bedroom, her training clothes were tight enough that he could see every curve of her body. He had to stop himself from tracing her figure with his fingertips.

She reached out a tentative hand and he bit his tongue hard enough that he tasted blood while her index finger drew a straight line down his face, starting at his hairline and ending at his chin. He almost shuddered when she reached his lips, but something stopped him. He couldn’t feel it. He was watching her finger move, but he couldn’t feel it on his face.

And that was enough to snap him out of it. “ _Depulso_ ,” he said quietly. A drawer in his desk creaked open, and out of it levitated a small circular box, the same shade of hazel as her eyes. It looked almost like a candle, but it was empty of all wax. All it contained were thoughts of Hermione Granger.

The version of her that stood in front of him backed away, and she was sucked into the box like a genie in a magic lamp. Then the box closed, fell back into the drawer, and Draco let out a deep breath.

When he finally opened his eyes and found himself back in his physical bedroom, he realized that the blood he’d tasted from biting his tongue was real. He couldn’t help himself from drawing the same line she had on his face. Couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like if it were her delicate hand and not his shaking one.


	3. 3

One Calming Draught later, and Draco was finally ready to start training. Okay, that was a lie. He took two Calming Draughts. And he still wasn’t ready. But he lumbered off his bed, snatched his wand from his desk, and made his way down to the training room.

It hadn’t been a training room when he was growing up, but there had been some redecorating since Malfoy Manor had been converted into a military compound. His mother had done her best to keep the  _ spirit _ of the Manor alive, as she called it, keeping their family’s portraits on the walls and Slytherin green everywhere. In all honesty, he wished it would have just been fully turned into a compound, marble floors and chandeliers be damned.

He never much liked the Manor after fourth year when the Dark Lord had crossed the threshold for the first time. His entrance marked the definitive end of Draco’s childhood. Lucius, once a fearless and powerful father, whom he could turn to if he needed any problem solved, had shrunk into a version of himself that Draco could barely recognize. No longer would his presence in a room demand respect. Instead, he was just another of Voldemort’s groupies vying for the Dark Lord’s praise. It almost felt like he stood a few inches shorter, but maybe that was because his spine was bent into a perpetual bow.

His mother had lost that twinkle in her eye that Draco had sought throughout his youth, her eyes fading to a duller shade of what they’d once been. Whenever he needed comfort or someone to vent to, she’d been there, smoothing back his hair and listening, offering advice when she thought he needed it and staying silent when she knew he didn’t. Now it seemed like she tried to be invisible and out of sight. Her comforts were limited to a hand squeeze as they passed each other in the halls of the Manor, or a kiss to his forehead when he went to say goodbye before he left for a mission. She was a shell of her former self, just as his father was.

Just as he was.

He was not exempt from this criticism, as much as he wished himself to be. He’d projected airs of confidence and swagger wherever the Dark Lord was concerned in his youth, but only to hide the mind-numbing terror that gripped him whenever Voldemort was nearby. And he was  _ always _ nearby. Granted, most of the time the Dark Lord simply lived in his head, reminding him of his tasks and what would happen if he did not complete them, but it didn’t matter. His presence was everlasting, in the worst way.

Every time Draco had had to see him while he was in Hogwarts, he would be punished with weeks of sleepless nights. He would close his eyes, and Voldemort’s red ones would be staring right back at him. So he would chug firewhiskey by the hearth in the Slytherin common room and try to find comfort in Pansy’s kisses on his neck. But there was never any comfort to be had.

In the years since, Draco’s mind learned to adapt. He practiced Occlumency as often as he could, and before he would go to bed at night, he would tuck Voldemort into a little box and place it outside of his mental bedroom door. Then, for extra security, he would lock the door before he tried to rest. And it worked. For the most part.

He paused just before the doorway to the training room and closed his eyes. She would be in there.

_ Don’t be a wanker _ , he told himself, the voice in his head harsh and sounding an awful lot like the version of himself that would bully first-years back at Hogwarts.  _ Just act fucking normal. It’s not a big deal. _

Before he could think about it any further, he strolled the rest of the way into the room, where ten of his memory-wiped schoolmates stood looking around cluelessly. “Line up,” he barked at them, and allowed himself a sliver of pleasure at the way they jumped and did as told. There was always a nagging fear in the back of his mind that someone would just say no, would refuse to respect his authority. But they didn’t know any better. To them, he was not an ex-classmate; he was a respected Death Eater.

He clasped his hands behind his back and walked towards the back of the room, giving them each a quick once over as he passed. “I’m not going to call you by fucking numbers,” he said, and didn’t miss how Romilda Vane, standing smack dab in the middle of the group, jumped at the expletive. She’d always been a little bit of a prude. Interesting how, even without a memory, she had held onto some of that personality.

He started at the back of the line, where Justin Finch-Fletchley rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Then what will you call us?” he asked, cracking a grin.

Draco only narrowed his eyes, long enough for the smile to slide off of Justin’s lips. “You’re Joker.”

He moved onto Cormac McLaggen, feeling himself standing a little taller in front of the oaf of a man. Since Draco had last seen him, it seemed that McLaggen had dedicated some of his time to bulking up. “Boulder.” Next was Padma Patil, fiddling with her long plait over her shoulder. “Braid.”

He continued down the line, reducing each of his former classmates to a one-word name based on some petty characteristic he noticed about them. Ginny Weasley became Red, for her hair, and Neville Longbottom, somewhat cruelly became Buck, for his large teeth. But Draco had never liked Neville. He could excuse giving him such a name.

He decided on Bushy for Romilda Vane, whose hair was larger than her face, and Luna Lovegood’s ocean eyes stared at him as he named her Blue. At last, he stopped on the face that he’d been dreading seeing. Or, pathetically, that he’d been looking forward to.

“Well, we can’t very well have two Bushys,” he said, glancing at Romilda Vane’s hair, and then Hermione’s. It was an obvious lie, but Draco knew nobody would counter him. Hermione’s curls had calmed since school, and though she may have once had that bushy hair, now it was anything but. He longed to reach forward and pull a curl towards him just to see how far it would stretch.

He moistened his lips despite his brain screaming at him not to, then looked into her eyes. Those hazel eyes that regarded him with such confusion, and so many questions. Questions that he could not answer. Would not answer. “Hazel,” he finally decided, in a softer voice than he meant to use.

He moved on quickly, hoping that nobody would notice the slight blush that tinged his cheeks. Seamus Finnigan stood beside her, and offered Draco a nervous grin. “What about me?” he asked. And Draco named him for his accent, Irish. Last was Katie Bell, who, standing several inches shorter than everyone else, became Pixie.

***

Another hour, and another name. She’d gone from Seventeen to Hazel, and there was still that bothersome question of her  _ real  _ name. If she got her memories back, there’d be another name to add to her growing list.  _ When _ , she reminded herself.  _ When I get my memories back _ .

Sandwiched between Blue and Irish, she watched the blond man carefully. He’d scowled at her in the dining room and fixed her with an intense stare as he nicknamed her, and she had absolutely no idea what to make of him.

She must have done something to him in the past. That was the only reasonable explanation that her whirring mind could spin. What other reason would he have to hate her? Hazel swallowed down the lump in her throat and tried to focus on her breaths. She’d have to find a time to apologize to him, to make him see that she was sorry for whatever she’d done to him in the past. If he would only just  _ tell  _ her what she’d done, then maybe she could fix it.

“And what should we call you?” Red asked, and Hazel couldn’t help but envy her bravery. There was something incredibly intimidating about him. His gaze made her mouth run dry and her palms go clammy.

It seemed, though, that Joker did not suffer from this affliction, as he offered up “Blondie?” as an idea. The man’s silver eyes flashed in his direction and any nervous giggles that had bubbled up from Joker’s quip quickly extinguished themselves.

“Unlike all of you nameless soldiers, I rank highly enough to have a real name.” Hazel watched his jaw set in agitation. A pang went through her nerves at the verbal confirmation of what she was.  _ A nameless soldier _ . She almost wanted to laugh; that kind of ridiculous laugh that is borne out of sheer insanity.  _ I have  _ two _ names: Seventeen and Hazel.  _ But then the man was speaking again and if there had been any thought of laughing, it was quelled. “Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.”

_ Draco Malfoy _ . She turned the words over in her head and let them steep in the recesses of her brain like a teabag in boiled water. And then she was seeing a younger version of him overlaid on top of the blond man in front of her now, his hair a shade closer to yellow and slicked back, his face rounder and red in the cheeks. She blinked and it was gone.

_ Was that a… memory? _

She had no time to ruminate on the thought because Malfoy was striding over to a chest on the other side of the training room and procuring a set of wands. He bent at the waist and neatly set all ten on the padded ground, then stood upright once more and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Starting with Pixie, say  _ Accio wand _ while holding out your hand,” he instructed, then raised his eyebrows at Pixie after she did nothing. “Do I need to repeat myself?” The words came out in a snarl.

Pixie stammered some apology then held her palm out, her eyes focused on the wands. “ _ Accio wand _ ,” she exclaimed, and the longest of the wands was pulled towards her. How ironic, that the shortest girl had the longest wand.

Next was Irish, who claimed a wand that was dark in color. Then it was Hazel’s turn. Just as her peers had done, she raised her arm forward and held out her palm like she was reaching for a door handle. And she repeated the summoning command. She feared that nothing would happen, but then the wand was zipping over to her so quickly that she hardly had time to prepare for the  _ thwack _ of the wood against her hand. She nearly stumbled back in surprise, but managed to catch herself.

Down the line, they continued to summon their wands, but Hazel was unable to pay attention. Instead, she clasped her fingers around the light-colored piece of wood, running her thumb around its circumference.

With the wand in contact with her skin, it was like the magic inside of her came alive. She could practically imagine light bursting in her body, fireworks coursing through her bloodstream. A golden cord wrapped around her veins like a rich, silky embrace, or so she theorized. Because the feeling of magic thrumming through her core was euphoric to the point that she was unable to hide the grin threatening to overtake her face. She tried to bite down on her lip to manage it, but there was no use. Hazel was positively beaming.

“I need to see what level each of you are at. One at a time, we will duel.” Malfoy’s voice brought her back down to reality, and the grin on her face dropped. He was smirking at them as though he knew something that they didn’t. “Show me what you’ve got.”

And so commenced the next step of the training. Buck volunteered to go first, and after casting a shield around them, Malfoy’s tall body stretched into a fighting stance. With him safely distracted, Hazel let her eyes wander over him, secure in the knowledge that he would not notice her doing so. Concentration took over his features, and his eyes darkened into something almost evil. She recognized the look. It was excitement.

It didn’t take long to figure out why. As it turned out, Malfoy was a gifted dueler, and Buck was no match for him even with his generally responsive reflexes and obvious dedication. They couldn’t hear the duel from outside of the casted shield, probably for the reason that the onlookers wouldn’t be able to steal hex ideas. But Hazel didn’t need to hear the spells cast to know that Buck was losing. Badly.

By the time Malfoy finally let up on him, Buck was walking back to the line with beads of sweat on his forehead and a slight limp. Hazel found herself biting her fingernails as Red stepped forward to go next, an expression of determination on the ginger’s freckled face.

Another shield was cast by Malfoy, and Red’s test began. She held her own for longer than Buck, casting more offensive spells than defensive, and Hazel watched a smile quirk on the girl’s lips. Her cockiness turned out to be her downfall. She reacted a millisecond too late to the next several offensive spells that Malfoy casted, and the eagerness on her face was replaced with a survival instinct. But just as the cockiness had, panic made her sloppy. The duel was over quickly after that, and Red trudged back to the rest of them, angrily defeated.

Braid, Boulder, and Pixie continued after her. Just like Buck and Red, they succumbed eventually. Braid ended her duel with her hair falling out of its plait, and Boulder’s casting skills weren’t as strong as his monstrous muscles would make it seem, the taut skin rippling every time a spell caught him. But Pixie put up more of a fight than Hazel had expected her to, lasting longer than those before her.

As Pixie returned to stand with them, Hazel bit her tongue and forced herself to take a step forward before she could convince herself not to.  _ Better to get it over with _ , she reasoned with herself as Malfoy waited for her to take position across from him.

Anxiety flooded her system as she walked towards him, and she had to wonder if her legs were shaking. As Malfoy casted the shielding charm around them, she tried to calm her nerves.  _ Just remember what you were taught _ . Then it sunk in.  _ That’s the whole bloody problem _ .

Malfoy returned his cloudy gaze to her, and she inhaled deeply before letting it out. “When you’re ready,” he said, a hard edge to his voice, like she was wasting his time. Her nostrils flared in annoyance.

How  _ dare _ he! In this memory-less state, she was having the largest crisis of her life (or so she could assume), and he was acting like she was a bother to him? He knew his fucking name, for Merlin’s sake! He probably knew  _ her _ name but of course, just like Barlow, wouldn’t say it! How dare he.  _ How dare he _ .

She let frustration control her as she darted forward with a generally harmless hex, quickly throwing up a shield before the hex even hit him. It was a simple water spell, and even though it didn’t cause him pain, there was satisfaction in seeing his shirt wet. There was even greater satisfaction in seeing the surprise on his features.

_ Serves him right _ .

The rage took over her instincts and her eyes sharpened on Malfoy’s extended wand, which was returning her hex but failing to penetrate her shield. She shifted her weight from foot to foot in a faux dance step as they continued to fire spells at one another and throw up shields. He seemed to only use a number of simple hexes, likely just to provide defensive testing, but it felt like he was underestimating her. And it made her shout spells that she didn’t even know that she knew at him with increasing frustration and precision.

Hazel was to be taken seriously. Even if she had no memory, even if she had no name, she did know one thing; she was a force to be reckoned with. And she’d be damned if by the end of their duel, he didn’t know it too.

All of her previous nerves and jitters seemed to fly away the more she got into the groove of the duel. She couldn’t tell if time was speeding up or slowing down or if it simply stopped existing. There was nothing but her, Malfoy, rage, and concentration.

She fired off spell after spell until he was stuck on the defensive, forced to use all of his energy to maintain his shield and ensure that it would cover his entire body. Some of the spells she shouted came out of thin air, and she barely registered what their effect would be if they could make it past his shield.

But the objective was to overpower him enough to force at least some part of his shield to weaken, and then she would exploit the vulnerability.

“ _ Alarte Ascendare! Herbifors! Petrificus Totalus! Densaugeo! Mimblewimble! _ ”

At last, she saw it. A tremor in the shield by his left knee. She couldn’t help the smirk on her face as she pointed her wand directly at the weakness, and screamed “ _ Stupefy! _ ”

The shield was still partially intact, so the spell did nothing more than extinguish the rest of the shield. But that was what she’d hoped for.

“ _ Expelliarmus!”  _ she yelled, and his wand flew into her left hand. “ _ Rictusempra!” _

She watched in twisted amusement as his angry, hardened face softened and his silence was replaced by a peal of giggles. His hands began to scratch along his arms and legs, like he was fighting off being tickled.  _ Perfect _ , she thought.  _ That’s what it was meant to do _ .

In his lack of focus, the larger shield he’d casted around them to prevent any wayward spells from misfiring disintegrated, and she could hear her peers laughing along with Malfoy. Except where his was a hysterical, forced laughter, theirs was genuine. She couldn’t help but smile.

But his eyes remained unaffected by the jinx, and the murderous darkness swimming among his irises was enough to ground her back to reality.

“ _ Finite Incantetem _ ,” she murmured, and his laughter quickly died, her peers following his lead only a moment later. The room was quiet except for Malfoy’s ragged panting, no doubt a side effect of her tickling hex. He stood in a crouched position, his hands braced on his knees as she became the subject of the most fiery glare she’d ever been on the receiving end of. And she knew that it was true even despite having no memory; it would be impossible for someone to produce a glare even half as intense.

If she’d thought that he’d hated her before in the dining hall, this scowl meant that he wanted her dead. She swallowed, a nervous regret starting to make her bones ache, and all of the pride she’d accumulated during the duel vanished into thin air.

_ Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. _

She made a step towards him, hesitantly holding out his wand which was still grasped in her left hand. Moving faster than light, he snatched it out of her grip. “Give me that,” he growled, stealing her own wand from her other hand as well. She wanted to protest but his demeanor was that of an enemy. In this state, she was afraid of what he might do.

He gave her one last look, seething under his breath, before storming out of the training room without so much as a glance at her peers, many of which hadn’t yet dueled with him. “We’re fucking done for tonight!” he yelled over his shoulder, and she was left to stare openmouthed at the others.

None of them spoke for a minute, as though waiting for him to come back, though it was clear he would not be returning.

And then, “Holy fucking shit.”


End file.
